Video is commonly played on notebook and laptop computers, hand held devices, and mobile devices, such as smart phones and other battery operated devices. Playing back video can require significant hardware resources, involving significant power consumption. Playing back video on a battery operated device can cause the battery to drain quickly, reducing battery life.
It is common to lower the quality of the video, in an attempt to reduce the usage of hardware resources during playback. It is also common the drop the visual quality of the video to simplify the algorithms used to display the video, especially in the presence of other content. However, such processing is contrary to the desired user experience of viewing high quality video.